15 Minnesota Companies Just Named to 2023 Fortune 500 List

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The annual listing of companies that made the most money in the U.S. last year includes 15 firms headquartered here in Minnesota.

Fortune is a business magazine and website that's been ranking companies in the U.S. according to their revenue for a while now, and it's quite an achievement to land on their top 500 list. In addition to bragging rights, it means your business can call itself a 'Fortune 500 company.' And 15 firms here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes can make that claim this year.

Overall, Fortune said that the top 500 companies on its list in 2023 provided jobs for 30,407,481 workers total, and generated a jaw-dropping $18,144,255,000,000 in revenue this year.

READ MORE: Minnesota Campground Just Named One of 10 Best in U.S.

Here in the North Star State, United Health Group is once again the highest-ranking company on the 2023 Fortune 500 list, coming in at #5 this year-- the same spot they occupied on the 2022 list. Fortune says they have 400,000 employees and generated $324,162 billion in revenue last year.

Here's the full list of Minnesota companies on the 2023 Fortune 500 List and where they rank this year compared to 2022:

#5: United Health Group/Minnetonka (also ranked 5th last year)
#33: Target Corporation/Minneapolis (down one from 32 last year)
#90: CHS Inc/Inver Grove Heights (up five from 95th last year)
#94: Best Buy/Richfield (down 26 68th last year)
#116: 3M/St. Paul (down 14 from 102nd last year)
#149: U.S. Bancorp/Minneapolis (up one from 150th last year)
#160: C.H. Robinson Worldwide/Eden Prairie (down six from 154th last year)
#213: Land O'Lakes/Arden Hills (up 19 from 232nd last year)
#219: General Mills/Golden Valley (down 18 from 201st last year)
#271: Xcel Energy/Minneapolis (up seven from 278th last year)
#289: Ameriprise Financial/Minneapolis (down 12 from 277th last year)
#293: Ecolab/St. Paul (also ranked 293rd last year)
#330: Hormel Foods/Austin (down three from 327th last year)
#412: Thrivent Financial/Minneapolis (down 61 from 351st last year)
#424: Polaris/Medina (down five from 419th last year)

If you're curious why Minnesota's largest company, Cargill, doesn't appear on the list this year, it's because Cargill is a privately-held company, which Fortune doesn't include in its rankings.

And here's what that means, according to Investopedia:

A private company is usually owned by the company's founders, management, or a group of private investors. A public company is a company that has sold all or a portion of itself to the public via an initial public offering.

So even though Forbes notes that Cargill isn't just the largest privately-held company in Minnesota-- it's also the largest in the entire U.S.-- it isn't included in the Fortune 500 list. Private companies like Cargill are responsible for creating some of the richest families in the country. Keep scrolling to see who they are!

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